Explorations
by Lynse
Summary: The invitation to join the quest—or hunt or whatever—in the Ghost Zone was only the start of it, but with Sam and Tucker by his side, Danny figured everything would be fine—especially when the ghosts were obligated to play nice. Of course, that doesn't mean that the Ghost Zone itself is harmless….


A/N: For whosvladagain on tumblr as their prize for my follower giveaway! They asked for some friendship with the trio hanging out and exploring the Ghost Zone. Set in S3. Standard disclaimers apply.

* * *

"Dude, what's that supposed to be? It looks official."

Danny followed Tucker's finger and saw the faintly glowing envelope sticking out of his backpack. The empty hallway meant they could talk freely, but he just shrugged and yanked his backpack out of his locker. "I dunno. I haven't opened it yet. I found it this morning, but—"

"But you were already late because of the Box Ghost," Sam interrupted. "We know. We saw. So open it now."

Danny pulled a face and closed his locker door instead. "What if this is something that just sucks us into the Ghost Zone? I haven't been pranked in a while. I'm kinda due."

Sam rolled her eyes and reached for the envelope, plucking it out of his still-open backpack. "It's Friday. School's over. We can take that risk." She flipped the envelope over, her eyebrows climbing when she saw the wax seal on the back. "Fancy." She slipped a finger into the corner and slid it along the flap, breaking the seal at its centre. Nothing bad happened.

Nothing bad happened when she pulled out the parchment and unfolded it, either.

"What is it?" Danny asked, leaning over to look when Sam didn't immediately answer.

"It's…a challenge," she said.

"A what? What kind of challenge?"

"This isn't another thing like Pariah Dark, is it? Vlad did not just trick us into something major, did he?" Danny asked. He squinted at the writing—it wasn't the easiest to read—and then looked to see if there was a signature at the bottom.

There wasn't.

"I think this is from Dora and Aragon," Sam said. "Listen, it…." She trailed off, glanced around to make sure the coast was still clear, and then read, "_If you wish to find, you must first seek, but the path ahead isn't for the mild or meek. Come to the castle of the dragon king—_"

"Aragon's not really the king anymore," Tucker interrupted. "If he ever even was. Didn't we sort that out when you got kidnapped?"

"—_to receive the details for your questing_."

"Is that a challenge or a summons?" Danny asked. "It kinda sounds like a summons."

"How should I know?" Sam said. "It's your letter."

Danny reached out and flipped the envelope back over. "Actually, it's not addressed to any of us."

Tucker snorted. "It was in your locker. Even the ghosts know which locker is yours. But I'd put my money on challenge, too. It said _if you wish to find_, right? As in, if you don't wish to find, you get to ignore this."

"Yeah, because that's worked so well for Danny in the past," Sam said dryly.

"It just…doesn't sound like something I'm allowed to refuse is all, even with that," Danny said. "Which I guess means I should get this over with, since for once I don't actually have homework. You guys can cover for me if I'm not back by tomorrow, right? I'm usually with you for most of the weekend anyway."

"Danny, we're coming with you." Sam looked at him like she expected him to argue, and even he knew the tightness in her jaw meant she'd have none of it. "If you want someone to cover for you, talk to Jazz. She does it all the time anyway."

Danny opened his mouth.

"And if you try to say it might be dangerous, that's why we're not letting you go by yourself."

He closed his mouth.

He didn't really want to argue with that, anyway.

* * *

No one in the Fenton household was home when they got there, so it was easy enough to leave a note for Jazz and steal the Spectre Speeder. Danny sometimes wondered what his parents thought when—if—they noticed its absence. Maybe Jazz always managed to come up with something if they brought it up. Or maybe they always thought the other was responsible and just never asked. He could be that lucky, right?

They took the Spectre Speeder as far as they could—Dora's kingdom might not be as stuck in time as her brother's, but some things hadn't changed—and went the rest of the way on foot.

There were a surprising number of ghosts gathered in the courtyard when they finally arrived, and Danny had the distinct feeling that they were late to whatever this was.

"So you made it after all, whelp," Skulker muttered to him. "And I see you've brought your teammates. You did not choose the hunter girl?"

"Uh. No?"

Skulker laughed. "You will make easy prey."

That would have been more terrifying coming from someone other than Skulker, but Danny still exchanged glances with Sam and Tucker. _Teammates_. Did that mean this quest thing was a game? There hadn't been any official time on the letter—he could have turned up at any time or not at all—so how could this be—?

"Billy Phantom," a voice drawled behind him. "Did you remember to take a number for your team?"

Danny turned to find Amorpho standing behind him, looking as much himself as he ever had, though Danny had no idea if that was what Amorpho _really_ looked like. "A number?" he repeated.

"I didn't think so." Amorpho reached into the breast pocket of his trench coat and pulled out a clipboard that, had he not been a ghost, would have never fit in there. "You and your friends will be Team 43. You get to start when your number is called."

"Start what?" Sam asked.

"The Holiday Hunt."

Tucker blinked. "But it's not Christmas."

"And the Holiday Hunt won't coincide with your Christmas unless that happens to be the holiday chosen by the draw."

"Is this like the truce?" Danny asked. Amorpho had no reason to lie to him, and he'd never heard of this before, so it couldn't hurt to ask. "This isn't an annual thing, is it?"

"Princess Dorathea is set on reviving an old tradition," Amorpho said, and Danny frowned upon realizing Amorpho had no trouble remembering her name. Maybe he just called him Billy on purpose? "The Holiday Hunt hasn't been held in centuries. But yes, the Truce rules apply."

"So what holiday is today?"

"Beltane," Amorpho said, in a tone that made Danny not want to admit he hadn't heard of it.

"Um." Tucker held up one finger. "What exactly are we supposed to be hunting?"

Sam looked like she intended to track Dora down and put a stop to the tradition of the Holiday Hunt again, but she contented herself with balling her hands into fists until she had more information. Danny edged slightly away, just in case she didn't like Amorpho's answer.

"You'll find out when your number comes up," Amorpho said. "If you can figure it out." He consulted the clipboard again. "You are content with a team of three? You'll be at a disadvantage."

"That explains why Skulker asked about Valerie," Tucker muttered.

"Who else would we work with?" Sam demanded. "You? Skulker? No thanks."

"Skulker's on his own team with Ember, Technus, and Youngblood. If you'll notice, his team was just dispatched." Amorpho sniffed. "I, like Dora and the Ghost Writer, do not play."

Danny narrowed his eyes. "Are you really involved in this? Or are you just trying to sow chaos? And isn't the Ghost Writer locked up?"

"The Truce rules are in effect," Amorpho repeated, "and helping with the Holiday Hunt has been deemed community service. Are you sure you want me to mark you down as a three-person team?"

"Yes," Danny and Sam said, but Tucker surprised them with the opposite response.

"What?" he asked when they looked at him. "We don't know where we're going. We don't even have the map. And if we get lost, I'm _definitely_ missing supper, and Mom's making her special meatloaf."

"I brought the map," Sam said. "That's not the point."

"Yeah, missing my mom's meatloaf was the point."

"That's not—!"

"Who would you team up with us, if we said we wanted a fourth?" Danny asked. "Who's not already in a group? Dani's not here, is she?"

"Dani is already on a team," Amorpho said. "Your fourth would be someone who is a little less…popular."

"Dani's popular?" He hadn't even known how many of the ghosts knew about her. He wasn't sure how strong her ties to the Ghost Zone were. To his knowledge, Vlad had never developed something to reliably create portals. Even the Fenton Bazooka just spit out unstable portals, and no ghost would voluntarily use that as a travel method. "Wait, never mind. That doesn't matter. She's here? I can talk to her?"

"Her team was among the first to set out. You are welcome to try to find her at the post-Hunt party if you all return."

"_If_ we—?" Danny broke off, glancing uneasily at the others. "You know what? Yeah, we'll take that fourth."

* * *

"I take it back," Danny said. "We don't need a fourth."

"The agreement was already made, Billy Phantom," Amorpho said. He checked his clipboard again—probably for show, since as far as Danny could tell, it was full of blank pages—and then said, "Your team is next. Go the castle to receive your first clue."

"But we don't—" Danny broke off and then sighed. Sam and Tucker obviously didn't know how to get out of this, either. Why had he ever opened his mouth?

Maybe he wasn't being fair. Okay, so there wasn't really any question about it; he _wasn't_ being fair. He knew how it felt to be picked last, but still. That didn't mean he wanted to team up with Sidney Poindexter.

"Come on, you cool cats," Poindexter said, throwing his arms around Tucker's and Danny's necks and steering them towards the main entrance of the castle. "We've gotta burn rubber and get our clue."

"I regret my life choices," Danny muttered.

"I regret your life choices, too," Sam said. Then, turning to Poindexter, she said, "You wanna be our navigator?"

He beamed at her. "Do I!"

"You're crazy," Tucker hissed as she handed over the map, though he seemed happy enough to be free of Poindexter's arm. "We're gonna be so lost!"

"We've been lost before, and this time, we probably don't know where we're going anyway. He might."

"But the navigator gets shotgun!"

"He doesn't know that."

The still-audible bickering continued until they entered the castle, but Poindexter seemed happy enough, so Danny didn't feel the need to apologize right now. Dora smiled when she saw them enter. "You decided to come," she said. "I'm glad the Box Ghost was able to deliver your invitation and let you know when we were starting the festivities."

Oh. Right. The Box Ghost. Danny hadn't actually let him out of the thermos yet, and it was still in his backpack on his bedroom floor. Of course, the Box Ghost had a surprising knack of getting out Fenton Thermoses even without needing to be released, so he might be free already anyway. It was…odd. It would be a good deal more terrifying, knowing other ghosts that Danny had captured in thermoses, except no other ghost had ever displayed what seemed to be a unique talent of the Box Ghost.

Cylindrical containers really didn't hold him. Not for long, anyway.

"Yeah. Thanks for, um, hosting," Danny said, having no idea what the proper protocol for this was.

If he was wrong, Dora didn't comment on it. Instead, she held out a letter similar to the one he'd found in his locker. "Desiree helped with the enchantment," she said. "When you complete the first task, your next clue will appear."

"Right. So don't lose the paper."

Danny meant for it to be a joke, but Dora nodded. "That would be ill-advised."

"What's it say?" Sam asked.

Danny unfolded it. Blinked. "Uh."

"Lemme see." Poindexter snatched it out of his hand, read it over, and nodded. "They're starting us off easy."

"Wh…. How is that _easy_?" Danny asked.

"It's all in the clue. You just gotta cast an eyeball at it. Now let's beat feet before we get behind."

"What'd it say?" Sam asked as Poindexter started off at a run and they jogged to catch up.

"It was another rhyme thing like the first one," Danny said. "I can't remember the exact words. I'd need to see it again."

Sam sighed, ran ahead to get the letter from Poindexter and point him in the direction of the Spectre Speeder, and then waited for Danny and Tucker to catch up to her before reading it aloud. "_Begin in the land where all is lost; places abandoned, paths crisscrossed. Find the youngest of the old and pocket secrets rich as gold._"

"Maybe it means the Far Frozen?" Tucker suggested. "It's easy to get lost there."

"Yeah, but it's not abandoned," Sam argued. "And we can't—" She broke off, then shouted, "More to the left!" When Poindexter adjusted his course, she nodded approvingly and turned back. "We can't assume we're going to be the ones to know every clue. There's a lot of the Ghost Zone we haven't mapped. And if you're on a time limit…."

"Hey, don't blame me for Danny agreeing to a fourth wheel," Tucker said, holding up both hands.

"I'm not blaming you," Sam said. "Or Danny. I just figure, if we're stuck with him, we'd be stupid to discount what he thinks. And he obviously thinks he knows it."

"And as long as we stay in the Spectre Speeder, we can use the homing beacon to find the Fenton Ghost Portal again," Danny said.

Sam grinned. "Exactly."

* * *

It didn't take long to catch up to Poindexter and walk with him the rest of the way to the Spectre Speeder. As much as he complained about being stuck in a group with slow humans, he seemed happy to be stuck with anyone. He didn't even complain when they convinced him to squeeze into the back of the Spectre Speeder, maybe because it was easy for him to go intangible through all the boxes that weren't coated in the same phase-proof goo as the exterior. Danny knew it was fine to crawl through the storage space, but it wasn't somewhere he'd normally ask someone to ride.

"So where are we going?" Sam asked. She'd somehow managed to claim the driver's seat, and Danny and Tucker knew better than to fight her for it.

"Didn't you read?" Poindexter asked. "It's obvious."

"Human, remember?"

"It's the Forgotten Forest. You guys forget about it already?"

"The what?" Danny repeated. "That's not, like, Undergrowth's lair or something, right?"

"You know. The Forgotten Forest. Full to bursting with winding trails. Rumour has it that not every ghost that goes in manages to come out." Danny just stared at him blankly, so Poindexter opened their homemade map. His eyebrows shot up. "You don't have it on here."

"Well, duh. We haven't been there. So tell me where to go. Please."

Poindexter leaned forward, phasing through the seat and Sam's and Danny's torsos as he held out the map so they could all see it. He tapped a blank space past his school. "Here. Practically in my backyard."

Danny, Sam, and Tucker exchanged glances. "How'd we never notice it before, then?"

"Maybe you did. And you just forgot about it. That's its thing. You need to do something memorable there to remember it."

"That makes about as much sense as anything else," Sam muttered. She looked at the map, no doubt noting the route she needed to take, and then floored it without any prompting from the others.

Danny was going to ask how they'd know they'd reached the right place, but it turned out he didn't need to.

The Forgotten Forest wasn't exactly easy to miss.

They'd hardly gotten past the colour-leached version of Casper High before they could see a speck of something in the distance, and that speck very quickly began to resolve into trees.

Giant trees.

The 'too wide to wrap your arms around them' sort of trees.

Sam parked the Spectre Speeder just into the treeline, and they made a half-hearted attempt to cover it with fallen branches and leaf litter. Danny didn't know what kind of trees they were, exactly, but he'd guess they were the ghost equivalent of those giant redwoods. Or sequoias. Unless they were the same thing? He'd have to ask Sam.

She and Tucker looked especially tiny standing on the root-ridden path they'd found. The faint glow of the leaves in the canopy above didn't give off much light this far down, and Danny figured he and Poindexter would need to light the way with ghost rays.

Assuming they could actually walk through this place and not have to fly and carry Sam and Tucker. Some of the tree roots delved into rock, opening rather substantial cracks, and others curled and knotted and—

"_Find the youngest of the old_," Sam said, reading from the clue again. "That means the oldest tree, right? A seed."

"So acorns?" Tucker asked.

Sam looked up and then down at the dead leaves and needles by their feet. She shook her head. "Cones, probably."

Danny glanced at Poindexter. "The oldest tree is going to be in the middle, isn't it?" Poindexter nodded, and Danny sighed. "Guess we better get this over with."

"Not to be a party pooper," Poindexter said, taking a careful step away from the trees, "but I've done my bit. You can take care of this while I catch some z's."

"Oh, c'mon!" Tucker exclaimed. "Do ghosts even need to sleep?"

"It's not worth arguing," Sam said. "He _did_ get us here."

"I hate this plan already," Tucker said, but when Danny led the way into the forest, he followed without further protest.

Sam, however, called for them to wait and ran back to the Spectre Speeder. A moment later, she returned with a few balls of string. Fenton String, specifically, to be used to repair the Fenton Net Gun or even the Fenton Fisher in a pinch. It wasn't until she'd handed the extra balls to Tucker and looped one end of the ball she still held around a root—there were no branches within easy reach—that Danny realized what she was doing. "So we don't get lost?"

Sam grinned. "So we don't get lost," she agreed. "After all, it's the original clue."

"I dislike the implication that that means there's something in that maze that wants to kill us," Tucker said. "I don't want to die in some place called the Forgotten Forest."

"Humans are basically ghosts in the Ghost Zone, remember? If we want to walk into a tree, we can walk into a tree. And hide."

Tucker grimaced at Sam's words. "I would've preferred it if you'd told me that nothing in here wants to kill us."

"Are you kidding?" Danny asked. "We're never that lucky. Now, c'mon, we've got a seed to find. You still have the clue, right, Sam?"

"Safe and sound in my pocket."

"If we die in here," Tucker said to Danny's back, "I'm so coming back to haunt you."

* * *

They never saw anything, but faint rustling in the dark made it clear they weren't alone in here. The fact that the trees creaked despite the distinct lack of wind wasn't comforting, either. It made Danny's skin crawl, and he couldn't stop a little part of his mind from wondering what had gotten lost in here and never made it back out.

Danny kept both hands alight as he flew overhead. The circles of light he cast were too small for comfort, but he could light up a larger area while flying than walking. Sam and Tucker scrambled along below, sometimes phasing through the tree roots and sometimes using them to climb over crevices, depending on what was necessary. When it got too tough, Danny picked them up and flew, but that meant depending on little more than his ghostly glow for light, and none of them were overly keen on that prospect.

Sam's string kept them from going in circles—or, more accurately, it let them know when they _had_ gone in circles and prevented them from doing that again. But by the time they were on the last spool, they had no idea how far they'd come. Even the smallest trees seemed to be a yard wide, and some of the bigger ones….

"Maybe we're going about this the wrong way," Danny said. "I mean, how are we supposed to find the oldest tree? How are we supposed to know when to stop?"

"When we run out of string, I guess, which will be in about thirty feet, judging by what's left."

"So we're ignoring that part of the clue?" Tucker asked. "Are we allowed to do that?"

Danny shrugged and flew back down to stand with them. There wasn't much point in going ahead if they were almost out of string. "Do you have a better idea?"

"Well, the oldest tree is going to be the biggest."

"Still doesn't tell us when to stop," Danny pointed out. "We don't know that there isn't a bigger tree somewhere else, down a different path."

"The clue does just say _old_, not _oldest_," Sam said, pulling it out to check. "We might be able to make do with any seed. It's worth a shot, anyway. If the clue doesn't change, we know we'll have to going."

"Do you want to keep going if we'll be out of string?"

"Well, no," Sam admitted, "but I thought you might."

Danny shook his head. "No. This isn't worth getting lost." He bit his lip. "Are you guys okay down here while I go up and look for an acorn or pinecone or whatever?"

"We should've brought a flashlight," Tucker muttered, but he nodded along with Sam.

Danny shot upwards, hearing Sam yell after him to find a cone that wasn't green. He waved a hand in response—she'd be able to see it easily enough with its glow—and kept going. He had the distinct feeling that if Sam hadn't thought to bring the string, they might not've remembered everything. Including why they were there, once they had gotten lost and wandered for longer than this.

A place didn't just get a name like the Forgotten Forest for nothing.

Danny reached branches long before he got close to piercing the canopy, but he didn't really know what he was looking for. He did figure out that not all these trees were the same—some had wide leaves, some had needles, and there was a mix of reds and oranges and purples and blues he hadn't been able to pick out from below—but that just made him doubt what he was doing. He should've brought Sam up for this. She was the closet thing they had to a resident plant expert.

He couldn't see any acorns _or_ pinecones. Or flowers or fruit or however else trees reproduced. Maybe that was the trick of this puzzle. Not to find a seed on the oldest tree but to find a seed on _any_ old tree. He had no idea how often trees reproduced in the Real World, let alone in the Ghost Zone.

Danny finally broke through the canopy, hoping he'd see something from the top. The bright green light of the Ghost Zone's atmosphere was almost blinding after the dimness of below, and he squinted against it as he looked for some sign of, well, anything remotely useful. He flew low, skimming the leaves as he searched.

It…took longer than he'd expected to spot a dark blue cone caught amid orange needles. Sam had warned him not to grab a green one, presumably meaning not to grab an immature one, but he had no idea if it was ripe or not. He figured he'd just bring it down and ask, so he slipped it into his pocket. If the clue didn't change, he'd come back up and look for another one.

Except….

"Oh, crud."

Everything looked the same.

He was _pretty_ sure he'd come up between a red and blue tree, but was it _that_ red and blue tree or _that_ red and blue tree or—?

Danny went back to what he hoped was vaguely the right spot and dove below the branches. "Sam?" he yelled. "Tucker?"

No response.

He started to shoot off ectoblasts in various directions, hoping to spot something that looked familiar, but of course everything just looked like giant trees on rock and dirt, so nothing was helpful and— "Tuck! Sam! Can you hear me?"

He held his breath.

He still couldn't hear anything.

Crud.

Danny bit his lip. He didn't want to do something drastic like use his Ghostly Wail to clear the way, since he was more likely to hit Sam and Tucker with it if they were anywhere nearby. Besides, they couldn't be _terribly_ nearby if they hadn't heard him calling, which meant all he'd do was waste his energy and ruin a couple acres of ancient trees, which was probably against one of Walker's rules.

"Plan B, then," he muttered. If he was lucky, they'd realize he'd gotten lost and start to head back without him, but that was unlikely. They could follow the string back easily enough, but they wouldn't have decided to leave in the time he'd been gone. They'd be expecting him to come back.

Danny shot upwards again. He'd have to leave them in the dark for a little longer. There was a faster way to find them.

Fortunately for him, it was far easier to get back to the edge of the Forgotten Forest and find the Spectre Speeder than it had been to find Sam and Tucker when he'd first started searching. He climbed inside, startling Poindexter who had been sorting through the various stores of supplies in the back—and doing a better job than anyone had in a long time, from what Danny could tell at a glance. "What, is it time to hit the road already?"

"No," Danny said as he jabbed at the control panel, "it's time to find Sam and Tuck." He really, _really_ hoped this would work. "C'mon, _c'mon_…."

"_Real World Items detected_," the Spectre Speeder chimed, and Danny breathed a sigh of relief. He screened through the nearest detected items—the Box Ghost had managed to transport a lot of boxes from the Real World, and for some reason the Spectre Speeder was managing to find a lot of them floating around—and then looked over his shoulder at Poindexter.

"You're going to want to hang on," Danny said.

He should have waited to make sure Poindexter complied before flooring it, but he didn't.

Being what it was, the Spectre Speeder fully counted as a Real World Item, and as long as Danny fully intended for it to pass through the trees as if it were intangible, it would. Intent seemed to count for everything in the Ghost Zone, and as long as there was some sentience behind the object….

Truth be told, Danny half-expected that he'd crash the Spectre Speeder into a tree, but it shot forward and through at least the first half dozen trees before Danny had even opened his eyes.

"Why didn't you do this before?" Poindexter asked. "If you knew this would work?"

"Because I didn't know this would work," Danny said, ignoring Poindexter's spluttered response. "My backup plan was following the string until I found them again. It wouldn't have been the first time we've crashed the Spectre Speeder, and it's not like me being wrong was going to kill either of us."

"Next time clue me in before you make a mickey mouse call like this," Poindexter muttered. "Just because it wouldn't end my afterlife doesn't mean I wanna know what it's like to be in a car when it's totalled."

"Okay," Danny said. "Sorry. I just…panicked. This place gives me the creeps."

"At least there's something here. Not like the Wastelands."

"The Wastelands?"

"There's nothing there. It's just…rock. Everywhere. Stuff doesn't grow or anything."

"What, like a nuclear wasteland?"

"Going there won't kill you. Or destabilize you. It just…. It's wrong. No one's figured out why."

"So an empty slab of rock is worse than a forest of trees where you can get lost forever?"

Poindexter opened his mouth, but he was thrown over the seat before he could reply as the Spectre Speeder abruptly braked. Danny nearly somersaulted over the steering column and hit the windshield himself, and only hovering managed to save him. He righted himself and looked outside as Sam and Tucker ran up.

"You didn't tell us we could take the Spectre Speeder!" Tucker called as Danny eased it forward so no part of it was stuck in a tree. "Why did you make me walk all that way? I nearly died!"

Sam hit him. "You'll be fine once you get some water." She reached for the door, climbing in as Danny scooted over. "Did you at least find a seed before you abandoned us?"

"I swear that wasn't intentional," Danny said as Tucker got in on his other side, "but, yeah, I found a pinecone."

"You know it's only a pinecone if it's from a pine tree, right?"

Danny didn't bother answering; he just dug out the pinecone—_cone_—and handed it to Sam. She, in turn, was pulling out the clue. She grinned. "It changed," she said. "_Far from the giants of before, stand where so many ghosts abhor. From the open or from the deep, find a piece of me to keep._"

Danny looked over at Poindexter, who had squeezed himself in by the windshield. He was scowling. "But there's nothing _there_," he complained. "It's Nowheresville, except _worse_."

"The Wastelands, huh?"

"What are the Wastelands?" Tucker asked.

"Apparently, _somewhere ghosts abhor_," said Sam. "So, which way?"

"I updated your map," Poindexter said. Tucker picked it up off the floor and unrolled it. "You cats have fun. I'll cool my heels here again."

He shot past them and into the back of the Spectre Speeder. Danny frowned. "He's acting like it's worse than he makes it sound," he admitted. "I don't get what's up with this place."

"It sounds like a dead patch in the land of the dead. Nothing weird about that at all," Tucker said sarcastically. "Anyway, head past the River of Revulsion, Sam, and try not to get us eaten when we skirt the Carnivorous Canyon."

"Starting to understand why they call it the Wastelands if it's over there," Sam muttered, but she threw the Spectre Speeder into gear and they shot off.

* * *

It was barren rock.

Everywhere.

As far as they could see.

Just…purple rock, like any of the other rocks that floated through the Ghost Zone, except with enough mass to keep it anchored in roughly the same place relative to the other lairs and swirling vortexes and whatever else was around.

They stayed inside the Spectre Speeder, travelling slowly. No other ghosts were in sight. Maybe everyone's clues were out of order? Or maybe there were different clues? Or they were just on a different part of this rock, or they'd come and gone already? Danny really had no idea.

He also had no idea how they were supposed to take a piece of it when it all looked like solid rock. There wasn't even _gravel_.

"Looks like there's a canyon up ahead," Sam said, checking the dashboard where Tucker had pulled up the Fenton equivalent of radar (which used ecto-waves). "Let's try there."

They descended slowly, passing strata of rock in varying shades of purples and blues. Danny craned his neck to look below, but there was no river. If there ever had been, it had dried up.

"Why, uh, is this place called the Wastelands?" Tucker asked.

Poindexter didn't answer, so Danny prompted, "Do you know? Or did you just hear about this place?"

"It all happened before my time," Poindexter said. "I've heard some bogus stories, but I think it goes back to Pariah Dark. This place used to be some kind of haven until he attacked and destroyed every ghost here. I heard it used to be a real oasis, and then bam! The rivers dried up and the plants crumbled to dust and all that was left was rock."

"That sounds cheerful. Why are we here again?" Tucker muttered.

"They say ectoplasm soaked into the rock. That it's insatiable now and is just waiting for a ghost to come so it can drain them, too. That's why no ghosts come here if they know what's good for them."

"And that sounds like the Ghost Zone," Sam added. "Fortunately, Tucker and I have zero ectoplasm in us, so it'll be safe to go outside."

"Dora wouldn't have sent anyone to their deaths, though. Or…destruction, or whatever," Danny said. "Maybe we aren't interpreting this clue correctly."

"Or maybe she doesn't believe the stories. Or maybe the Ghost Writer doesn't, since he wrote them."

"Or maybe," Sam said, "Danny's right, and there are multiple ways to interpret the clue."

"I hate all these interpretations."

"That's not going to stop you and me from chiseling a piece of rock loose if we have to," Sam retorted. "And we shouldn't have to, if this place was really once—"

"Whoa," Danny said, filling the silence as Sam broke off. She'd steered toward a cavern at the base of the canyon, something that might have once led to an underground branch of the river or a feeder of it if the flow was going the other way. What Danny initially took to be stars—not unheard of in the Ghost Zone, since it was the Ghost Zone—resolved into thousands of crystals, large and small alike, sparkling in the headlights of the Spectre Speeder and giving off a faint pink glow.

"That's what we need," Tucker said, and no one argued. He lost a quick rock-paper-scissors game to Sam, so he had to hop outside with the Fenton Hammer and break off a piece.

It worked better than Danny had expected, considering Tucker only needed to take a few swings at a stalactite before a piece of crystal cracked and broke off.

It was strangely silent as Tucker did that, as if the cavern were swallowing the sound instead of allowing it to echo. As if there really were something to the story Poindexter had told. Danny shivered. If they ever had to come back here, they were definitely exploring when he was in human form. It wouldn't necessarily spare him from any ghost-related consequences, but it might slow things down long enough for him to get away without any lasting effects.

Tucker scrambled back inside, handing the crystal to Sam and the hammer to Poindexter to stow beneath the seat again. "It's humming," Sam breathed, holding the shard to her ear and then out for their examination. "Can you hear it?"

Danny might have said it was her imagination, except that they were in the Ghost Zone, in a place which, had such a horrific event occurred in the Real World, would be rife with ghosts.

"Please put it away," Poindexter whispered. "I don't like it."

"Right. Sorry." Sam tucked the crystal next to Danny's cone and pulled out the letter. "We've got a new clue. _I am life and I am death. Chaos spins from forgotten breath. Creation, destruction, entropy— Take a handful of this from me._ Any ideas?"

Poindexter nodded. "Yeah. The Wilds. Now punch it. That place is way better."

"Chaos? Destruction? Yeah, sounds like a riot," Tucker muttered, but Sam was already backing up the Spectre Speeder.

* * *

The Wilds were less structured than Danny had imagined. From the name, he'd pictured a jungle, something like the Forgotten Forest except with a distinct rainforest-y twist. Instead, it was a shifting patch of the Ghost Zone farther away than the Far Frozen.

It was weird. One moment, it seemed to fold in on itself, much like the various swirling vortexes, and the next it was flooded with steam like it was on the edge of an active volcano. A blink later, and a forest shimmered into existence, but the trees and landscape were beginning to change even before he could fully take it in. Fire burned it away, and then that fire became ice and snow, and then—

"This place hurts the eyes," Tucker commented, turning away. "How are we supposed to take a handful from that? There's nothing to take. It keeps changing."

"Maybe it'll stop once we touch it," Sam suggested, but she sounded doubtful. "Assuming we can get close enough, anyway."

"Anyone know what entropy is?" Danny asked. "I mean, I'm assuming it's not a good thing, but…."

"Not being good doesn't mean it's bad," Sam pointed out. "It's, I dunno, randomness or something like that. There's some thermodynamic law with it. I can't remember."

"You slept through that class," Tucker added, helpful as ever. "Sam and I spent most of it trying to wake you up."

"I'm not _that_ hard to wake up."

"I'm not sure you would've moved even if the fire alarm had gone off. The only reason you _did_ wake up is your ghost sense went off and—"

"Okay, fine, so I sleep like the dead, you can say it." Danny sighed. He knew from Tucker's grin that he was just _waiting_ to make that joke. Again. "Maybe I wouldn't be that way if the dead slept more often." Wishful thinking. At least Poindexter had never tried to break through to the Real World again, but—

"We shouldn't go any closer," Poindexter announced. His words had Sam stomping on the brakes, but he was the only one not thrown forward despite being the only one not buckled in. That almost made things worse, since it meant his gaze didn't waver from Danny's face. Danny squirmed. Poindexter was looking at him like he belonged under a microscope. "It's already affecting you."

"What? How?"

"It's…. Pieces of you. It's what it does." Poindexter waved a hand. "I don't really understand it, either. The Ghost Writer's books aren't very clear on that."

Danny frowned. "Wait, you're reading stuff the Ghost Writer wrote?"

"Well, I've already read through the entire Casper High library, and he's got a better collection. And he's the only one I know of who writes about the Ghost Zone. But that's the wrong tale, nightingale. And that…. That's one of the effects. Scatteredness."

"You're calling him scatterbrained?" Tucker asked, laughing.

"I'm calling him scattered. It's scattering him. It…. It'll be scattering me, too. Maybe already is." He held out his hands and stared at him. "I still look whole, right?"

"Oh, we are _not_ staying here longer than we have to," Sam said. She undid her seat belt and scrambled into the back. Danny didn't know what she was looking for until she was strapping on a Fenton Jetpack. "Try not to let me die," she said, "and don't forget to close the door behind me."

"Wait, don't—" But Sam had already opened the door and thrown herself out. Tucker crawled over Danny to close it.

"I still don't know how she's supposed to take a handful of that," he said, jabbing his thumb towards the Wilds.

Danny wanted to say something encouraging, but he had no idea what. He didn't have the answer. And Poindexter—who apparently had a lot of answers because he read the Ghost Writer's books (Danny hadn't even been aware that he wrote stuff that didn't rhyme)—wasn't volunteering anything, either.

"When you say scattering," Danny asked slowly, keeping his eyes on Poindexter because he didn't want to think about what Sam was getting herself into right now and not wanting to panic until he had more information, "what exactly do you mean?"

"Just…scattering." Poindexter shrugged. "That's what this place does. Takes in bits of ectoplasm, even from ghosts like us if we stick around too long. Spits them out. Sometimes as something new. You've seen those inkblot ghosts, right? Nothing much more than eyes?"

"Yeah, but…." Danny swallowed. His parents had captured a number of blob ghosts, and he had no desire to be one of them. "I thought you said this place was way better than the Wastelands! How is it any different?"

"Don't get frosted. It _is_ better. You can keep yourself together if you know. You just need to concentrate. I wasn't concentrating before, and neither were you. I just thought we'd be safe this far out." He paused. "I haven't made it this far before. I don't often get invited out with everyone else, but the last time I did, when they were all playing chicken, I…. I flew away. Didn't live it down for a decade. Still wouldn't have, if it weren't for when we'd swapped."

Great, so this was a place that would only destroy you if you let your guard down. Little comfort in that. Poindexter's definition of _way better_ needed work. Danny was really starting to wonder if these were the real clues for the Holiday Hunt. Desiree and the Ghost Writer would probably _love_ it if he accidentally destroyed himself, and Dora wouldn't necessarily know if they'd cooked up a separate set of clues for his team. Then again, if the truce rules were in effect….

The passenger door opened, and Danny started. "Sam!"

"Glad none of you died while I was gone," she said as she climbed in and shut the door behind her. "I wasn't long, was I? It felt like ages, but…."

"It wasn't," Tucker said. "So what's a handful of _creation, destruction, and entropy_ look like, anyway?"

"You tell me." Sam paused in shrugging off the jetpack long enough to hold up a jar of swirling _something_. "It was soil when I grabbed it. It didn't stay that way." She passed the jetpack to Poindexter, who looked at it with interest.

"Are we done?" Danny asked. "Was that the last clue?"

"I haven't looked yet," Sam said, but she was pulling out the piece of paper as she said it. When she unfolded it, he knew the answer from the expression on her face before she had a chance to say anything. "We're not out of the woods yet."

"Actually, we kinda left those behind—"

"_Break through the mists to find my heart_," Sam read, ignoring Tucker, "_but wait not long before you depart. Where past is present, times near and far, capture my lifeblood within a jar._"

"How does that thing know we have access to jars?" Tucker asked.

"Maybe the clues are tailored to each group," Danny said.

"And they're, what, learning about us from what we say and do?" Tucker pulled a face. "That's way creepier when it's not technology. I can at least hack it if it's technology."

"That doesn't matter." Sam looked back at Poindexter. "Where to?"

"I don't know," he said. "I know some places that are shrouded in mist, but I've never gone to any of them, and the rest of the clue doesn't help me."

Sam sighed and slumped back in her seat. "Tell Tucker what's closest, then. We might as well poke around before we give up."

* * *

By the fifth mist-shrouded rock, Danny's fear that every clue secretly led to some sort of attempted destruction had abated.

Mostly because, so far, they hadn't found anything beyond mist-shrouded rocks. Well, the ghost puffins had been kinda cool, and the other rocks hadn't been empty, either, but there was no great 'dark and stormy night' equivalent like he'd been fearing. Nothing terror-inducing. Nothing soul-sucking. A few shadowy jackalope-looking ghosts on the second island, sure, but they hadn't even needed to get out of the Spectre Speeder to scare them away.

This island was as empty as the last one had been. The misty barrier had been thicker, but they'd broken through it to find an arguably picturesque rolling landscape. Nothing had tried to eat them so far—the rocks appeared to genuinely be rocks—so Danny counted that as a win.

They were passing over a lake when Danny pulled out the map again, trying to figure out from Poindexter's drawings what might be another mist-shrouded island. "Where to next?"

"I…. I think we're here."

Danny blinked and twisted to look at Poindexter. "What? Why? There's nothing out there. I haven't even seen any ghosts in this place."

"Not ones made out of ectoplasm," croaked Poindexter as he tugged at his bowtie. He looked…. Well, he always looked pale, but he almost looked a little less grey than usual. For anyone else, that might be a good thing, but with Poindexter….

"I'm with Danny," Sam admitted as Tucker slowed to a stop. "I don't get it."

"This…the…memories," spluttered Poindexter. He pointed out the lake. "I…. Can't you see it?"

The others exchanged glances. "See what?" Tucker asked. He glanced towards the water. "I just see our reflection."

"Is it _this_ reflection?"

"Huh?" Tucker looked again. "Wait, is that snow behind us?"

"What?" That was Sam now, staring at her own window. "Oh." Her voice was small. "That's, uh, not snow, or at least I don't see snow. I see trees." She laughed. "Wait, that's when we wrecked Vlad's cabin!"

"I don't even see this contraption," Poindexter murmured as he phased through the seat and Tucker to press up against the driver's side door. "It's…. This is my life. The good times. Chess club victories and celebrating with egg creams and sodas and—" He broke off. "This is it. It has to be." He opened the door to the Spectre Speeder and flew out. "I…. This place is the bee's knees! It's even better than high school is for me now. Look, there I am getting that award in math."

Poindexter was pointing toward the water below him, but Danny didn't look. He wasn't sure he wanted to. Something…something was…. Something didn't feel right. He didn't know why. He just…. He wanted to trust his gut.

One of the last times he hadn't, he'd gotten electrocuted by one of his parents' inventions.

"Guys," Danny said slowly, "what, uh, did that clue say again?"

"Never mind that," Tucker said. "It's showing the first time I hacked Skulker's armour. I got him _good_."

Sam snorted. At some point, she had opened her door, too, and both she and Tucker were leaning out over the water, staring as stories—memories—played out in the reflections. "Oh, that's nothing to the expression on Aragon's face when I was doing my crazy bride-to-be routine."

"Guys?"

They ignored him.

He knew the clue had talked about the mists, and there was something about lifeblood—_water_, he now realized—but what was the bit in the middle again?

"I'll just find something to put the water in," Danny said, but they still weren't paying attention to him. He phased into the back and found the same kit Sam had found earlier—the one stocked with Fenton Containment Devices—and pulled out a pint jar with the green F emblazoned on its lid. Heading back to the front, he yelled to get Poindexter's attention.

That didn't work, so Danny tossed the jar at him.

It passed right through him and hit the water. "Hey," he complained as the ripples spread outwards, "what's the big idea?"

"Can you get some water?" Danny asked, pointing at the jar.

Poindexter frowned at him.

"Please?"

"That was a good memory," he whined, but he still reached down to fill the jar. "You didn't have to ruin it."

"Actually, I kinda think I did." He had the attention of Sam and Tucker again, too, so Danny said, "Can you read the clue again?"

"To see if it's changed?" Sam asked. "I like this place, though. We could stay here a little longer."

"I second that," Tucker agreed immediately. "Nothing is trying to kill us! Or, like, destroy us, or make sure we're lost forever, or anything bad like that. This is definitely the best place we've been."

"Please just look," Danny said as Poindexter flew back to hand Tucker the jar. As soon as he passed it off, he flew back down to hover above the water's surface, staring at a spot that was smooth of ripples again. "I don't…. I don't think we should hang around here is all."

"But why? This place is great! It was showing me the time I—"

"Tucker," Danny interrupted, "just trust me, okay? I mean, if this place is so great, why are we the only ones here? Why is this place abandoned? If it's so good, why isn't everyone in the Ghost Zone talking about it? It could be a prime vacation spot or something."

"You say that like ghosts have a day job," Sam said, "but that's just Vlad and sometimes Spectra and Bertrand."

"You know what I mean!"

"Yeah, but it doesn't matter." Sam showed him the original clue instructions. "Blank page. We're set. No one ever said anything about a time limit on this thing, and we haven't run into any other teams."

"We might not," Danny said. "That might be the point. I think…. I think everyone's clues are different. Or that _ours_ are different."

"Dora's our friend, Danny," Sam said flatly.

"Yeah," Danny said quietly, "and she's Poindexter's, too, as far as I know, so why would she send us some place that does _that_ to him?"

Sam and Tucker followed his pointing finger and saw what he did: colour slowly returning to the previously colourless ghost, complete with an eerie red aura that was far brighter than his usual ghostly glow.

"You know that can't be good, right?" It reminded him too much of the time Desiree's magic had nearly turned Tucker permanently into a ghost, and not a friendly one at that.

"Right," Sam and Tucker said in unison, and they both edged farther inside the Spectre Speeder than necessary and slammed their doors closed. Tucker bent over the controls, flipping through the options to find the least painful ghost containment method (all unfortunately tried by Danny at one point or another, never by choice). Not one to scorn what she considered a good upgrade to the Spectre Speeder, Sam pulled the steering column over to her side of the vehicle and activated her set of pedals while Tucker worked; neither of them liked letting Danny drive, preferring that he could get out quickly to fight a ghost without risking their safety if it came to it.

It felt like it was taking too long for Tucker to find what he was looking for, and Danny had to close his eyes. This place was getting to him. He was…he was starting to think about how things could have been different, might've been different, if he'd made different choices, and he'd experienced too many alternate realties to—

Danny was slammed back into the seat as Sam took off. Even with the Spectre Speeder's navigation system, she was going faster than she should. Danny wasn't about to argue, though. He wanted to get away from here as fast as possible, too.

And he'd arguably faced much worse, many times over, while buckled into his seat in the GAV while his dad was driving.

By the time the Spectre Speeder sputtered to a stop in the Dragon Kingdom, the distant banging from the containment chamber below had stopped. Danny hopped out to release Poindexter while Sam and Tucker gathered their treasures from the hunt. "Are you okay?" Danny asked as Poindexter flew out.

"Just swell," Poindexter muttered, brushing off imaginary dust from his clothes. "Least it was bigger than the inside of my locker. And I did deserve that. Don't know what happened."

Honestly, neither did Danny, but he had his suspicions. "Come on, let's see if everyone else beat us back."

This time, the courtyard was empty but for Amorpho. Judging by the way he was rapid-fire shifting, he was bored. He reverted to his standard form when he saw them, losing the knight's armour, and drawled, "Last to check in. You do realize this means I lost a bet with Youngblood. I expected better of you, Billy Phantom."

"Never mind that," Danny said, looking around for the clipboard so he could assure himself that it wasn't just blank paper after all and that this hadn't all been a phenomenal trick. Of course, it was nowhere to be seen. "Was this Holiday Hunt or whatever supposed to kill us? Because it nearly did."

Poindexter raised a finger. "Um—"

"Kill or destroy," Danny amended, rolling his eyes.

Amorpho shifted into Walker. "That would be against the rules."

"Yeah, that's what I figured." Danny turned back to the others. "I think we were set up. There is no way this was supposed to be that potentially dangerous."

Amorpho resumed his normal form and held out one hand. "Let me see your clue."

Sam waited for the others to nod before handing it over. Danny could see at a glance that it was no longer blank and figured it must've changed to display everything once they'd gotten back here. Amorpho studied the list for a moment before reading out the clues to confirm that they hadn't changed. He handed the list back to Sam and said, "It's the same clue list every team received. Should've taken you to those ruins with the secret gardens—"

"What?" Sam demanded, spinning on Poindexter.

"—the sulphur beach past the River of Revulsion, the Wilds—that was the most dangerous for you, which is why I was instructed to _encourage_ you to bring along a ghost who knew what it could do—and the Lake of Memories."

"You're kidding, right?" Tucker squeaked.

"I'm sure if you found suitable replacements, the magic is such that the interpretation of the clue could vary, but—"

"No, wait, hold on. If this _Lake of Memories_ isn't what you call dangerous, why did the clue straight up say _wait not long before you depart_? Isn't that referring to what it does to you, sucking you in and making you want to stay until it can, I dunno, consume you or whatever it does?"

"It says that because it's the final clue." Amropho turned to Poindexter. "Did you take them to Lake of Drowned Dreams?"

Poindexter swallowed. "Not intentionally? I thought that was past the Ring of Fire."

"It is."

Poindexter looked at Danny. "Do you remember passing the Ring of Fire?"

Right. So they had been sabotaged. It just hadn't been at all intentional—unless the Ghost Writer had been deliberately vague with his clues, but that wasn't a point worth arguing. "It's fine," Danny said instead of answering. He wasn't sure what the Ring of Fire was, anyway. Knowing the Ghost Zone, it was probably literal, but maybe it involved lava instead of fire. "We're all fine. We survived. We made it. We have…stuff."

"Water, seeds, rocks, and sometimes-dirt," Tucker confirmed. "Does that mean we still get a prize?"

"I'll show you the designated planting area," Amorpho said. "As you must have guessed, each successful team has returned with some seeds, water, and energy from the Wilds to encourage quick growth—along with whatever marker you chose from the beach to signify your team's contribution. It's being called the Unity Gardens. You can ask the princess about all her grand plans for it yourself, once we all finally get to go inside to the party."

"Thanks," Poindexter murmured to Danny as they set off, trailing behind Amorpho and Sam and Tucker. "I would've wound up in the cooler for sure."

"You didn't mean it," Danny said. "And it was fun, in its own way. We never would've found all this stuff without you."

Poindexter snorted. "Your map is terrible."

Danny bit his lip. "You wanna show us the places we were supposed to go sometime? The gardens and everything else?" Pandora's gardens were the nicest he'd seen, so if this place even came close to that—

Poindexter grinned. "You really mean it?"

"Yeah. I could use more friends in the Ghost Zone, and we got off on the wrong foot when we first met."

"Swell!" Poindexter hugged Danny and then flew ahead to jabber excitedly to Sam and Tucker.

Danny liked it when he got some down time and was able to go exploring with Sam and Tucker, but he wasn't opposed to the idea of having a guide for a bit and _then_ going off and getting lost, just the three of them.

Either way, they wound up with a lot of good stories to reminisce over later. And tidbits to tease Jazz with. Although he hadn't even told her everything about the Ghost Writer yet; he had the distinct feeling that once she found out the size of his library, he wouldn't see her for weeks. He was saving that for a time when he _really_ needed a break from her.

But this?

This was good.

Terrifying at times, but good.

Just an average day in the life of Danny Fenton, and he wouldn't have it any other way.


End file.
